Global Intelligence: Joint Operations Element
by Quebec
Summary: When a new threat rears its head, Global Intelligence races to stop it using their newest weapon: the Joint Operations Element, an alliance of the world's greatest soldiers. Realism AU/Gritty Reboot type deal.


A/N: I'm posting the first chapter as a test, if it goes well I'll post the rest of the planned chapters together. Enjoy, friends.

Duke hung onto the handrail and watched the jungle pass underneath the Osprey as they neared the drop zone. His team of non-comms were seasoned soldiers of their respective militaries, but Duke couldn't shake the feeling that they were still grunts. He thought of the stories his dad had told him of Mogadishu.

His father, who'd been in Delta Force, told him about how the Rangers were supposed to be elite, but most of them were shaken to the core after things started getting out of control. Duke didn't like the idea of trusting his life to men who could only keep it together when they had full spectrum dominance. Duke knew from his first mission that JOE operations didn't always go flawlessly.

It had only been a week since JOE's first mission: Operation Cold Hand. Duke was to infiltrate a Siberian compound alongside three other JOEs: Beach Head, an urban combat specialist recruited out of the SAS, Dusty, a former Delta Force operator and the most devious trap maker you'd ever meet, and Scarlett, who used to be CIA agent and was a magician with anything digital. Duke himself had been a Marine Raider and would have had a Medal of Honor if that operation had ever officially happened.

The compound was suspected of having been host to information regarding a rogue Russian general and nuclear materials. Duke's team was to insert and prepare the area for the grunts to raid the place for real.

It was a frigid hell, the wind was howling, bringing the temperature well below zero. Snow was blowing up from the ground and falling down from the clouds, taking visibility to barely more than .

They infiltrated the AO on snowmobiles and walked the rest of the way, dodging patrols with their thermal goggles. Their first physical obstacle was chain link fence, an electrified chain link fence.

"That's gonna be enough to kill us." Dusty said.

"How're we getting around it?" Duke asked.

"We can separate it from the power source, we can go around it, or we could try to get under it."

"We don't have time to tunnel under a fence." Scarlett said.

"We don't need to go all the way under it, the chain link isn't electrified." Dusty reached out and wrapped a finger around one of the link. "The wires behind it are."

"Could there be wires underground?" Duke asked.

"Probably, and the grounds frozen solid."

"What about the power?"

"Probably by the checkpoint in."

"So it'd be easier to go through the guards?" Beach Head said.

"We're all packing subsonics, right?" Dusty said. The team affirmed that they were. "The power source should be fragile enough that a low caliber shot could take it out." Beach Head reached behind him and produced an MP5SD, extending the stock and chambering a round.

"Never leave home without it." He said.

Beach Head and Dusty crawled their way around the perimeter to the checkpoint that guarded the way into the compound. Through the snow and the thermals, Dusty couldn't quite make out the power source. He flipped the goggles up to try and see it through just the snow. He couldn't find it, but he did find that the fence next to the checkpoint didn't have the electric piggyback.

"We can cut through here." Dusty said. He summoned Duke and Scarlett to their position. Duke handed him the pair of bolt cutters on his back. Dusty clipped the chainlinks, bit by bit making a hole. He cut enough to lift the fence and let the rest of the team go through before following.

Inside the compound, they made their way to the first target building, the radar and communications outpost. After radar was down, the rest of JOE could insert cleanly and get their job done while Duke's team got back to base.

They stacked up on the backdoor and switched to sidearms for extra silence, Scarlett's Glock 19, Dusty's FNX 45, Beach Head's P226, and Duke's specially modified VP9. A combination of a custom suppressor and a Match Weight compensator were mounted on the front. He'd had the suppressor made specifically for himself to work with the compensator. The kick was light as a feather and it was quieter than a whisper.

Beach Head lead them in, taking down a man with his back turned to the doorway. Scarlett dropped another man sitting at a table with a cup of coffee. Neither of them were obviously armed, but if they could yell, they could kill. The door on the opposite side of the break room was closed and unlocked. Duke cracked it open at checked it. A sliver of plain antechamber was revealed. He pushed it all the way open and the room was empty. Two doors were on the opposite end, one on their right, a bathroom. Scarlett knocked on the bathroom door.

"Occupied." A voice said in Russian.

"Room for one more?" Scarlett said as seductively as the language allowed, trying to open the door. A confused grunt came from the other side of the door before it started opening. Scarlett kicked it the rest of the way and shot the guy in the chest twice. "Clear." She said.

Beach Head slipped a mirror under one of the far doors. Half a dozen men stood at computers and control panels, oblivious to the violence in the next room. One of them watched over the rest with a rifle. The next door down was a supply closet.

They stacked up and Duke opened the door. He lead them in, taking down the rifleman with a shot to the head. The four of them each took down another of the rest and Dusty shot the remaining man.

"Clear." Duke said. "Scarlett, shut down the radar." Scarlett started working the consoles.

"I'm good here, you guys can get moving to comms." Scarlett said.

"Roger." Duke said, leading Dusty and Beach Head out of the building. They switched back to their rifles and got back into the snow as the storm started dying down.

Snow stopped falling, but the wind was still howling and snow still sliding across the ground of the base. Visibility was better, but still low. A soldier with a cigarette leaned back against the fence around the communications tower. Duke dropped him with his pistol. Someone yelled something in Russian and laughed, walking towards the man he didn't know was dead. After he got close enough, Duke shot him too. They got up into a crouch and moved into the radio tower's enclosure.

Dusty laid the charges and the team made it back to Scarlett. The radar was down and the air defenses with them. They got back outside the fence and Dusty blew the charges, causing the ground to quake angrily and tearing the tower down. The base was crippled. Duke gave the go ahead for the raid to commence.

Ospreys took off and were dropping soldiers before the rouge Russians knew what was going on. The non-commissioned JOEs, the grunts, spread out and began to assault the crippled compound. Duke and his team made for a landing Osprey and shot up the ramp. It took off, but they were barely off the ground when they watched another one of their VTOLs get struck on the wing and start struggling to keep itself in the sky. It failed.

It dove into the frozen dirt, chewing through the ground with its propellers and melting the snow with the one flaming engine.

"Put it back down!" Duke shouted.

"Zone's too hot!" The pilot said.

"We're not leaving anyone behind, put it down!" Scarlett said.

"We're going to go down too!"

"You coward, we used to shoot men like you!" Beach Head said.

"Put this damn thing down, that's an order!" Duke said. This pilot said something under his breath and brought the Osprey back around and put it down.

The team ran down the ramp and across the frozen ground. Bullets cracked and shrieked and guns thundered in the distance. The wind drew biting snow into the faces, making the crash just a faint orange specter through the fog. The ramp was down and the crew were trying to dig themselves out. The non-comms that weren't wounded were getting their comrades out of the wreckage and returning fire at the base. The team told them to get back to helping the injured and trapped while they held the Russians off. Their thermals aided them greatly, letting them pick targets out of the storm.

They each burned through rifle rounds. Duke's M4 Block II, Dusty's MPW, Beach Head's Mk. 16, and Scarlett's Mk. 18. There seemed to be too many. The base wasn't that well guarded. They were attacking from all sides, their thermal signatures were visible all over the place. It wasn't the JOEs, the non-comms wore suits that blocked their heat signatures.

"All callsigns, this is Bingo. Hostile reinforcements are arriving on our position." Bingo said. He was watching the scene from the GI base in Luxembourg through a drone. Thermal signatures dotted the landscape, dismounting from trucks and collapsing to the ground as the team of commissioned soldiers cut them down.

"Bingo, this is Duke. We've got multiple wounded in a downed VTOL, requesting CASEVAC." Duke said.

"Affirmative, Duke. CASEVAC is enroute." Bingo said.

"Roger, out." Russians were still coming. A squad off one of the three Ospreys came in support, handing magazines to the commissioned JOEs whose rifles took them. They weren't only protecting the crew of the downed Osprey, they were protecting the the men carrying on with the mission from the reinforcements that seemed to have come from nowhere.

"Where the hell are they coming from?" Scarlett shouted over the frey.

"I don't know. There might have guys enroute already." Duke said.

Dusty's rifle ran dry first, being unable to take ammo from the non-comms. He took the VHS-2 rifle and ammo off of an unconscious non-comm and kept fighting.

Over the sound of the guns, something hummed dully in the distance, growing louder. The fight continued and the supply of ammunition kept falling. White figures were all up and down the crest of the hill, shooting and getting shot. The hum grew, a dull thudding from the sky in the distance. Helicopter blades.

"BTR!" Duke shouted, diving down as the Russian hulk rolled into view. Its turret craned around to get them in their sights. Its gun roared. It lowered the turret as the gunner tried to walk the shots into the JOEs. Rounds chewed dirt and flung grass into the JOEs seeking shelter.

"AT, AT!" Dusty called to the comms and non-comms. As the shots neared, their detonations against the ground got louder and louder. Duke closed his eyes.

A cataclysmic roar rippled through down to the JOEs and the unmistakeable thumping of helicopter blades passed right overhead. Duke looked over his cover and saw the BTR engulfed in flames. Tracers formed an almost solid stream from the sky as Blackhawks circled in the sky. The AH-64 made another flyover, hosing down infantry with its autocannon. One of the Blackhawks landed and the opened the door. Flint ran out alongside three other JOE paramedics. He looked over the wounded.

27 people were originally in the VTOL. Four will still up and fine. Seven were hurt bad, but still up and fighting. Five were awake but out of the fight. Six were unconscious and five were dead. It was going to take a lot of Medhawks to get the wounded out.

"Get me three Medhawks on the ground at the downed bird." Flint said. He ran over to the JOEs. "Anyone need ammo?" He passed out magazines until he was out except for the one in his rifle.

Duke blinked and he saw the jungle again. The intel secured in Siberia lead them to Columbia. The rogue general had been working with FARC rebels and an unnamed "contact" in the jungle. They found details leading to a small FARC camp that the General was said to have stayed at. Duke was leading a team of non-comms to search and secure any intel on the General.

"Red light, red light." The pilot said, switching on the red light in the troop compartment.

"Operation Old Echoes is a go." Duke said.


End file.
